by Lisa Shelby
Baxter catches up to me just in time to catch the elevator. The first few seconds neither of us speaks, but once we hit the tenth floor, he clears his throat, and I can tell he's been keeping something from me.
"Sir."
It must be serious if he's calling me sir.
"Spit it out. What haven't you told me?"
"There is no need to go by her apartment. We've already checked there and, um, well she wasn't there."
The elevator doors open, and I rush through the ornate and luxurious lobby without seeing a thing. All I can think about is the apartment four blocks away. The Union Square area is bustling as usual and full of tourists. Tourists that aren't in a hurry as they stop to take pictures. Tourists and locals alike that I gently shove to the side as I run through the streets with Baxter hot on my trail. I hear people yelling and cursing as I push past them, and I don't give a damn.
When we reach her block and I make the sharp left onto her street, Baxter grabs my arm and shoves me against the building. He's got his hand pressed to my chest to make sure I don't go anywhere, and we stare each other down with our breaths labored from the run in the cool early winter air. I should be fighting him to get inside, but I can tell he has to tell me something, and it pains him to do so.
"Ronan, you don't need to go up there."
This is where the part of him being my friend and not my employee can get in the way. He has information and hasn't shared it with me.
"Why, don't I need to go up there, Baxter? What aren't you telling me?"
"Ronan, my men are here, and I don't think you want to go up there. There is no sign of her but someone has been here."
His words send me into a furious rage, and I push his hand off me and rush into the building. I take the stairs two at a time to the second floor, and as I round the corner of her hall, the light spilling out into the corridor sends me into a cold sweat. Baxter is right behind me.
"Two of my men are still here. They're searching for any bit of evidence they can find. But we don't have any reason to believe she was ever here."
Two steps away from her door, Baxter steps in front of me and once again has his hand on my chest and is silently begging me not to enter. I swat his hand away and walk around him. I use the tips of my fingers to push the door open the rest of the way, and the despair I feel when I see the wreckage in front of me is unlike anything I have ever felt before.
The furniture has been torn to shreds, and the stuffing from her couch and feathers from her pillows cover every surface of her living room. The pictures have been taken off the wall and broken into pieces. There isn't anything that hasn't been flipped upside down and ruined. I step over a broken table and try not to disturb things as I walk down the hall to her bedroom.
The sight before me brings me to my knees. The room where she once greeted me with nothing on but my tie and her glasses. The room where I told her about London and where she told me she wanted to find her mother. This tiny room that was a safe haven for the both of us is no longer.
The drawers of her dresser are splintered and lying all around the floor. Her bedding and mattress are shredded just like the furniture in the living room, and her clothes and personal belongings have been thrown around in an obvious attempt to scare her. To see the intimate parts of her life treated as if they were nothing has me seeing red. To think that drug dealing thugs came after her and were in her home makes me sick. Thank God she wasn't here and had been with me.
I stand myself up and leave her bedroom behind me. I can't look at it any longer. A flash going off in the bathroom grabs my attention. Baxter steps out of the bathroom and into the hallway, and it's then I realize he was photographing something. Begrudgingly, he steps aside and lets me see for myself what is so photo-worthy in the tiny room.
The moment I read the words written in the shade of lipstick I know to be hers on her mirror, I lose control, and my fist breaks through the glass, shattering the taunting words meant to scare Olivia. My Olivia. My reason for breathing. When I find the men that did this I will tear each of them limb from limb, but Dickey Brown has a slow sweet torture headed his way.
I feel like I'm suffocating, and I need to get out of this bathroom, this apartment and this building. I grab one of the only things still in its place in the entire apartment, the hand towel hanging on the little hook next to her sink. I wrap it around my bleeding hand and make eye contact with Baxter on my way to her front door.
"Find her!" I yell at Baxter and his men as I leave and make my way into the city to search for the only person who has ever truly loved me.
I feel like I'm walking through a dense fog, and everything feels as though it's moving in slow motion as I aimlessly roam the streets of San Francisco. I stop in every hotel I pass and ask if they've seen her or if anyone has checked in with her name. By the time I reach The Inn at Union Square, the little hotel right across the street from the St Francis, I'm feeling helpless, but I refuse to leave any stone unturned.
The narrow little lobby is small yet inviting. The woman behind the counter greets me, but I don't hear a word she says.
"Have you seen this woman?" I lift my phone and show the most recent picture I have of Olivia from two weeks in Laguna Beach. "She would have checked in last night, under the name of Olivia Adams."
She takes a look at the picture and shakes her head. "I'm sorry, sir, like I told the men who came in earlier, I haven't seen her, but let me check again and make sure she isn’t a registered guest." She types what I can only assume is her name into her computer. "I don't see anyone by that name, sir. I'm very sorry. I hope you find her. She's a beautiful woman.
"She is more beautiful than you could ever possibly imagine. Thank you for looking." I push off the front desk counter that was holding me up and turn to leave. A man pushes through the front door and passes me.
"Wait, sir!"
I turn back in a flash with a spark of hope waking me up.
"Sir, this is Randy. He works the desk in the evenings. Why don't you show him the picture of your wife? Maybe he'll remember seeing her?"
Wife...God, I wish. Once I find her, I will waste no time in making that happen.
"Randy, this man is looking for his wife, can you take a look at this picture and see if you recognize her?"
"Sure," the older gentleman with thinning gray hair agrees as he pulls his glasses off his forehead and onto his nose.
I hold my phone up to him, and I see instant recognition cross his face. "Her name is Olivia Adams, and she would have checked in yesterday sometime."
"Yes, she's a hard one to miss. She checked in and paid cash right when I got on shift yesterday, but she didn’t check in under that name and she didn't stay. I saw her leave right around midnight, I think."
My pulse picks up and my heart is thundering in my ears. "Did you see which way she went?"
"Well, she just went straight out to the curb, and it looked like she was waiting to cross the street. That's all I saw. The phone rang and when I looked back up, she was gone. I wish I had more info for you, sir, but I don't."
"No, you've been most helpful. Thank you for everything." I reach into my wallet and hand him a hundred-dollar bill and my card. "If you see her again or if you remember anything else at all, please call."
"Of course, sir. Thank you."
I push through the hotel doors and find myself standing on the curb exactly where she was standing the last time she was seen, and directly ahead of me is the St. Francis. She was coming back to me. She didn't stay the entire night, and she was headed back to the hotel. I scream into the night air when I think of the words, that included her birth name, on her bathroom mirror. Words that will haunt me every moment until we find her.
Amber, I finally found you.
No more hiding, little one.
12
Olivia
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound of water dripping, as though from a leaky faucet, wa
kes me. My head is pounding, and my stomach feels sick. I try for what feels like minutes to open my eyes, and when I do, my surroundings are blurry and unfamiliar. The space around me feels damp, and I'm lying on cold concrete. In fact, the entire room is made of concrete and there is an old metal desk covered in rust pushed back into the corner.
With my world spinning, I push myself up, and the pain in my head becomes unbearable, and my stomach empties itself onto the cement in front of me. My eyes tear from the strain of getting sick and cloud my already blurry vision. I awkwardly crawl to the other side of the room and as far away from the smell of where I just got sick. My wrists and ankles are tied together, and I struggle to sit up with my back against the wall, in the corner of the room where I can see everything there is to see—not that there is much to see. I'm starting to shake with chills, and I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around my legs.
My vision slowly begins to clear, and I see there are two doors. One leads to a disgusting bathroom with the faucet, which appears to be the source of the dripping sound that woke me. The other door leads to what, I don't know. There are two windows in the room, but they are covered in a film that barely lets any light in. The room is gray, dingy, and I have no idea where I am.
The more I wake, the more I realize it's not just my head that hurts. My entire body seems to have an underlying ache about it, but the ache in my head is not nearly as subtle and feels like a baseball bat was taken to it. I reach my hand up to the central location of the pain and my fingers are met with tangled hair that is covered in what feels like day-old blood. Sure enough, when I pull my hand back it is covered in crimson. The urge to get sick again overtakes me, but just as I think I might vomit, I hear the click of a lock on the door. I still and the fear that fills me takes away any urge I may have been having.
The door opens and in walks an overweight, balding man. He's wearing a suit and, just as I remember, wingtip shoes. I don't need to look at his face to know whom he is. He carries an aura about him that you feel the moment he is anywhere near you. An aura of pure evil. The man who killed my father and ruined my mother. The man who has had control of my life, even when I wanted to believe he didn't.
He closes the door, and it sounds like it locks shut behind him. Resting against the edge of the rusted-out desk with his legs casually crossed in front of him, he makes a clicking sound with his tongue and the sound brings back all the memories of my childhood I have tried so hard to forget.
"Well, hello, little one. It's nice of you to finally wake up. I've been looking forward to talking to you for quite some time now."
Little one...the name he called me when he killed my father right in front of me. The one he called me when he told me he couldn't wait for me to get older so he could whore me out like he did my mother. The name that has haunted me in my sleep for years. It's as though all of the monsters from nightmares have come to life.
"It was really sweet of you to visit your mother on her last day, Amber...excuse me, I mean Olivia. That's what you go by now, isn't it?"
I don't answer. I won't give him any more than he has already taken from me.
"Not feeling like a Chatty Cathy today, I see. That's okay, little one. I don't need to chat. It's too bad you’re all bruised and bloody. I had always wondered what it would be like to screw Susan's daughter, but even I have standards. Maybe I'll keep you around long enough to heal, then I'll fuck you, get my millions, and then kill you."
His words don't shock me. I heard him talk to people like this many times in my youth. Similar words were said to my father right before he killed him. I will not let him see me react. I will not give him what he wants.
"I knew one day I would find you, and I always knew I would kill you once I did. I just never imagined there would be the added bonus of you being involved with a man like Ronan McKinley. The McKinley family is very powerful and worth billions. You did good, little one. Now, I can use you to extort millions from your handsome two-timing boyfriend. I'll offer you in exchange for the money, but I'll kill you before he ever gets his hands on you again. We'll let him stew a couple more days before we reach out to him. I've waited twenty years to find you; what's a couple more days."
He stands and walks toward me, but I don't look at him. I look straight ahead and continue to pretend he's not there. I will not give him what he wants.
He squats down in front of me so I can avoid him no longer, but I close my eyes. "Look at me, little one." My eyes remain shut. "Aw, please don't make me ask again."
When I don't open my eyes, he grabs me by the hair, and I want more than anything to scream in pain, but I fight the need and grit my teeth. "Open your God-damned eyes, Amber!"
He pulls me up to standing, never letting go of my hair. It feels like he is ripping my scalp clean off my head, but I will not make a sound. "Open your eyes!"
I finally give him what he wants and open my eyes. He is mere inches away, and I can feel his breath on my face. Not taking a moment to think about what I'm doing, I spit in his face. He instantly lets go of my aching head to wipe the spit from his face. By doing so, he smears the blood from my head that now covers his hand all over himself, and all too quickly without me expecting it he rears back and punches me in the gut. Uncontrollably, I vomit all over the floor again, and this is clearly more than he bargained for."
"You fucking bitch! You have no idea how lucky you are. That rich boyfriend of yours is the only thing keeping you alive at the moment. Enjoy living in your own filth." He shakes my sick from his wingtip shoe and turns to leave. Once in front of the door, he looks up into the corner of the room above the desk and nods to the camera I hadn't noticed before. The door clicks open, and he leaves without another word.
He was watching me. That's how he knew I was awake. I tell myself not to let the fact that I'm being watched bother me. I've been looking over my shoulder and feeling as though I was being watched for years. In a way, this is better because I know I'm not crazy. I am, in fact, being watched.
Hours have passed, and the sliver of moonlight that peers through the corner of the window where the tint has started peeling off is my only comfort. I tell myself that it's Ronan sharing his moon with me. He did tell me that our moon would always light the way for us, and I hold on to this with everything I have. This sliver of light gives me hope and keeps me going.
I can't imagine what he must be thinking of me. Does he think I left him because of London? I can't believe I was foolish enough to have left the hotel and ventured out on my own. He wasn't keeping me prisoner, he was keeping me safe, and it turns out he was right to have kept me there.
Now, because of me, he and his company are going to be extorted for money. The company will be dragged through the mud if this goes public, and their family legacy will be smeared with scandal. All because Ronan fell for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. I should have been stronger. I knew better than to get involved with my boss, but I was selfish and didn't listen to the voice inside my head that said things would end badly. Now, he and his company will pay the price, and I'll end up dead in the end whether they pay the money or not.
Looking up to the high window where Ronan's moon shines so brightly, I close my eyes and silently send a message to him. Willing him to know how truly sorry I am. That I love him and I was coming back to him. I was across the street from him the entire time. Thinking of this reminds me of the moment everything went black. I was about to step off the sidewalk and cross Post Street when an arm went around my waist and a hand covered my nose and mouth with a sweet-smelling cloth and then everything simply went black.
I was so close, and the last thing I saw was our moon shining over the St. Francis. It was lighting my way back to him, and I like to think that's what it's doing right now as it gives me something to hold on to. Because Ronan and I are meant to be together, and I will make this right. I will find my way back to him. Even if he doesn't want me back after all of this, I need him to know I wasn't leaving him,
and I was on my way back to him.
13
Ronan
Even sitting on my kitchen patio at my home on Franklin Street, her second favorite place to be, I can't be calmed. It's been three days without contact from Olivia, and I'm finding it hard to breathe. I can't remember the last time I ate or slept and my nerves are shot to shit. I'm surviving on cigarettes and fits of anger to keep me going.
"Hey, your man Baxter called and said you needed a hug or something. You okay?"
"Yeah, dude, what gives? It's not every day we get summoned by your head of security. Ben's right. You okay?"
My two best friends take a seat directly across from me at the big family-size table. Next to me, I feel Baxter's presence as he takes a seat to my left. "Reinforcements, really?" I say, turning to face the man who is the closest thing to family I have, next to Olivia.
"Talk to them, Ronan. You know they can be trusted, and they need to know. You need their support."
"Fuck, I don't even know where to start." I hang my head between my shoulders and blow out a puff of smoke. Smoke that I know I shouldn't be taking into my body after seeing what it did to Olivia's mother, but at the moment it’s the only thing giving my nerves any respite.
"Ro, just start at the beginning. Richie promises to keep his mouth shut. Don'tcha, Rich?"
Richie holds up the first three fingers of his right hand. "Scouts honor."
I huff out a long sigh and start with finding Olivia's mother. I tell them the things Susan said that day, about her passing that night, and Olivia accepting my offering to move in with me. I also tell them about leaving her two nights later to go to my mother’s for her birthday dinner. I tell them about London's threats and leaving for New York. When I tell them how I had Evelyn let her go, they both curse my name and tell me what an asshole I am, and I can't argue with them.
